Oxford MSc Health Policy Supplemental Essay Example: Research Pathway (Score 93)

The piece I submit is a 4,200-word policy analysis excerpt drawn from my undergraduate health policy capstone at the University of the Philippines Manila, completed in my final year. I selected this excerpt — specifically the methodology and findings sections — rather than the full thesis because it concentrates the two capacities most relevant to the MSc: the translation of a compartmental epidemic model into a governance argument, and the disciplined use of evidence to constrain a policy recommendation. The personal statement explains my broader motivation; this note concerns only what the excerpt demonstrates analytically. The excerpt applies a modified SEIR simulation, calibrated against Philippine Department of Health surveillance data from the 2020–2021 COVID-19 wave in Metro Manila, to evaluate the timing sensitivity of community quarantine thresholds. The central argument is that a 72-hour delay in threshold activation — the gap between modelled trigger and actual Inter-Agency Task Force declaration — produced a measurable divergence in projected hospitalisation load, a finding I quantified using a Monte Carlo sensitivity sweep across three transmission-rate assumptions. This method allowed me to separate the effect of decision lag from the effect of compliance heterogeneity, a distinction that prior Philippine policy reviews had collapsed. The excerpt therefore shows that I can move from a formal model to a falsifiable policy claim without losing the uncertainty structure that makes the claim defensible. The excerpt also has clear limits I am naming deliberately. The model treats Metro Manila as a single mixing population, which understates spatial heterogeneity across municipalities with different health system capacities. My sensitivity analysis flags this but does not resolve it; I lacked the barangay-level mobility data that would have allowed a metapopulation extension. I also did not engage the political economy of why the 72-hour lag occurred, which is precisely the gap the MSc's health systems governance and evidence-to-policy modules are designed to fill. The excerpt demonstrates that I can build and interrogate a quantitative argument; the programme would train me to situate that argument inside institutional and political constraints — the move my current work cannot yet make credibly. The full capstone is available on request. If the department permits a supplementary appendix, I am prepared to supply the annotated model code and the complete sensitivity table; otherwise, the submitted excerpt is self-contained and sufficient for assessment purposes.